


Entry Wounds

by raving_liberal



Series: Through and Through [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fictober 2020, Gen, Ghosts, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kid Fic, Kid Winchesters (Supernatural), Pre-Series, Southern Gothic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: This is the story of Dean and Sam’s first hunt together, which Sam doesn’t remember, which Dean does remember and has taken to his grave on numerous occasions. Dean was nine. Sam was five. Her name was Mimi.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester & Original Child Character(s)
Series: Through and Through [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966996
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	Entry Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Fictober](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/) prompt 23: “do we have to?”

The trailer they’d been staying in for weeks was situated in the crook of a J-shaped road in Toonigh, Georgia, a place too small to even rank a postal code. What it did have was a locksmith, a gun shop, two Baptist churches, one Church of God, and the weariest trailer park the boys had ever seen. Dean thought of them as merely “staying” in the trailer, because what their father did when he was around could hardly be qualified as living. When their father wasn’t around, Dean knew better than to ’fess up to living anywhere that DFACS could track them. John Winchester fought werewolves, rawheads, and the occasional shapeshifter, but the only entities he really seemed to fear were the thing that killed their mom and Child Services.

School started back in August, but the Winchesters didn’t arrive in town until mid September, at which point John decided enrolling them in school wasn’t worth it. He planned to pull up stakes after a week or two, three at the outside, once he finished working a job the next county over. Three weeks turned into four, then rolled on into five, but the job never seemed to get resolved to John’s liking. He came back every couple of days to drop off a little money for food and, ostensibly, to confirm his sons’ continued existence on this mortal plane with his own eyes. Mostly, though, he doled out the money, drank until he passed out on the sagging trailer’s equally saggy sofa, and disappeared like a ghost by morning.

Sam asked after John the first two weeks, but by week three accepted their new circumstances without any argument. At first, Dean tried spending the time productively, like teaching Sammy to tie different knots or lie to unfamiliar grown-ups on the telephone. When he ran out of knots, he taught Sam how to heat up cans of soup or make grilled cheese without burning down the trailer, though the trailer stayed so perpetually damp from humidity that the odds of it actually catching fire seemed pretty slim. Sometimes, Dean remembered they really ought to be in school. On those days, he drilled Sammy on his adding and subtracting or made him read aloud from the fishing magazines left behind by the trailer’s previous tenant. It never occurred to Dean that those things might be beyond some five year olds, so he thought nothing of Sam’s ability to do them.

Most of the time, though, Dean sat out on the trailer’s droopy steps and watched Sam play with the neighbor girl, Mimi. She was a few years older than Sam, but about the same height, on account of her having Down Syndrome and something wrong with her heart. Mimi owned a painted wooden box full of tiny ceramic animals of all sorts, which she and Sam played with in the trailer’s sparse grass and red clay “yard.” She always let Sam have the momma horse and her little foal, his favorites, so he was happy to crouch in the dirt and play for hours. Mimi’s sense of humor kept Sam in constant stitches, while Sam’s natural gentleness always brought a smile to Mimi’s face. She never spoke to Dean directly, but Sam recounted their conversations when he and Dean bunked down in the trailer’s lone bed at night.

At first, Dean didn’t stop to wonder exactly which of the five other trailers on the J-shaped road Mimi lived in or why she wasn’t in school, either. She appeared outside the Winchesters’ trailer every morning at around eight, played with Sam until Dean figured it was lunch time and sent her home so he could feed Sammy. After lunch, she’d be back, waiting with her wooden box to play until dusk. The days John was at the trailer, she didn’t come at all, though she always seemed to know when he left. She turned up bright and early those mornings, the red clay dust kicked up by the Impala’s tires not yet fully settled. Mimi never wore shoes—neither did Sam—and red dusted the tops of her feet.

Eventually, the novelty of the ceramic animals wore off, and Sam wanted to play something else. Mimi wouldn’t come into the sagging trailer, not that Dean blamed her, seeing as how he wished he never had to go into it himself. She didn’t want to kick a ball or throw rocks into the kudzu to see what birds or other animals might come out, two activities Sam enjoyed immensely. Sam even brought out his treasured 24-count box of real Crayola crayons which he rarely even offered to share with Dean. They didn’t have much blank paper for wasting, but Sammy cleverly thought of tearing out all the white subscription cards from the fishing magazines. He drew fish, flowers, spirals, and other arcane shapes known only to Sammy. Mimi just shook her head when Sam held out the yellow crayon, even though yellow was her favorite. She played with her animals, and Sammy drew pictures of them, and they seemed happy enough.

The crayon incident was Dean’s first clue that something was amiss. What little kid didn’t love coloring, especially with their favorite color? Mimi’s wooden box was painted yellow. Her dress was faded yellow with tiny blue flowers printed all over, with a round collar and yellow buttons down the front. Even the plastic barrette clipped into her bluntly bobbed hair was yellow. Something felt off about the whole thing, which cast a sudden light onto the fact that, if Dean stopped to think about it, something had felt a little off from the beginning. That night, when he and Sammy turned in for bed, Dean decided to test the waters of his developing theory.

“Hey Sammy,” Dean said, in the darkness of the bedroom. “Which trailer does Mimi live in?”

The rickety bed shifted as Sam shrugged. “I dunno.”

“She never said?”

“Uh-uh.”

Summer’s cicadas had finally screamed their last two weeks ago, so Dean lay awake in the quiet dark. Beside him, Sammy rolled side to side, unable to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress. A dog barked somewhere, and trains rumbled and sounded in the near distance. 

“Hey Sammy?” 

“Yeah?”

“How come Mimi don’t ever talk to me?”

The bed creaked as Sam rolled onto his side. Dean saw the glimmer of his brother's eyes in the dark. 

“I dunno. Mimi doesn’t like to talk to people,” Sam said.

“She talks to you, though,” Dean said. “You’re people.”

Sam’s one visible shoulder lifted and dropped, a half-shrug. “Not that kind of people, I guess.”

Dean wanted to argue that whatever kind of people Sammy was, he was too, but somehow, in the oppressive darkness of a humid Georgia night, that no longer felt completely true. 

“Maybe—” Dean began. “Maybe you shouldn’t play with Mimi so much anymore?”

Sam sat up in bed, making the whole thing rock. “But why, Dean?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s just not such a good idea.”

“But don’t you like Mimi?”

“Sure,” Dean said. “I like her just fine.”

“Is it ’cause she’s different?” Sam asked. 

“Course not. Nothing wrong with being different. Winchesters are different, too.”

“Then why?”

Dean sighed and rolled away from Sam to face the wall. “No reason, I guess.”

Shortly before sunrise, John made an appearance, waking both boys as he slammed the trailer door open, arms laden with gear and grocery bags. Soon, the trailer’s small kitchen filled with the sounds and smells of breakfast cooking, Sammy barely able to contain his excitement over the fluffy pancakes John piled high on his plate. Dean thought this might mean John finished the job. Every time John opened his mouth, Dean expected him to say, “Boys, it’s time we move on.” When John instead announced he was heading back out again, just three hours after arriving, Dean’s heart sank.

“But you just got here,” Sammy said. 

“Son, sometimes jobs take longer than I expect. You know that,” John gently chided his younger son. 

Dean watched the disappointment on Sam’s face slowly settle into anger and wondered if their father noticed it, too. He didn’t seem to, instead busying himself with swapping out gear and books from his larger ‘boys, don’t you ever touch this’ duffel in the bedroom closet. Sam sat at the card table that served as their dining table and seethed, arms crossed over his narrow chest. When Dean grabbed a bag to help John load the Impala, Sam looked even more betrayed and angry. 

Sam knew better than to refuse his father a polite goodbye, and Dean put a hand on his brother’s shoulder to project an air of confidence he hoped John believed. As soon as the Impala disappeared around the curve and down the straight line of the J, Sam shrugged off Dean’s hand and snarled, “Lemme alone. I’m gonna play with Mimi.”

Normally, Dean kept Sam within eyeshot, but Dean had his own disappointment to deal with. He left Sam standing in the red dust cloud and stomped back up the trailer steps so hard the boards screeched, pulling open the door and slamming it behind him. Inside, alone for the first time in weeks, Dean didn’t know what to do with himself. He knew he should clean the gun John left behind for protection, which Dean wasn’t to let Sammy see, but instead he found himself sitting on the saggy sofa, staring at the fishing magazines. Sam colored on all the covers, tinting the trout and bass with red and purple and scribbling out the faces of the fishermen holding their prizes aloft. 

Dean stared at the magazines for a long time before slipping into a light sleep. In his dream, rainbow fish swam through the air and Sam caught them with a net on a long, yellow pole. Dean’s chin hit his chest, snapping him awake. The old clock on the wall said it was well past lunchtime, and Dean couldn’t hear Sam.

He ran out of the trailer, taking all three steps in a leap, yelling, “Sam? Sammy?”

No answer from Sam, and the dirt patch between trailers was empty. Dean rushed into the yard in a panic, calling for Sam, only to find him on the back edge of the property, staring into the dense foliage of the woods beyond. The thick kudzu at the property line brushed against the toes of his too-small sneakers. His face was vacant, mouth slightly open and a single hand extended towards the curling vines.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled, snatching Sam by the sleeve and pulling him away from the kudzu. Sam blinked up at Dean like he was waking from sleep. 

“Hi Dean.”

“What’re you doing? You can’t go in there! It’s probably full of snakes,” Dean said. “What were you thinking?”

“I can’t find Mimi,” Sam said.

“You know she never comes around when Dad’s home.”

“But he’s gone now.”

“I know, Sammy,” Dean said. “Maybe she’ll come over later.”

“But I wanna find her,” Sam said, lower lip trembling and eyes shiny with tears. Something tugged in Dean’s gut. 

“Okay,” Dean sighed. “Let’s go find which trailer is hers.” He held his hand out for Sam. Sam’s hand felt cold and clammy in Dean’s, too small and fine-boned. Sometimes Sam’s big vocabulary and serious way of thinking made it too easy for Dean to forget how much younger his brother was. As they approached the first trailer, Dean was keenly aware of Sam’s age and size. 

Of the five other trailers on the J-shaped street, Dean ruled out two. One belonged to a latino family of four, the other to an older black woman and her grandson. Dean led Sam to the other trailers one by one, knocking on the doors and asking for Mimi. Nobody on the street recognized her name or even her description. 

“Sammy, how did you know Mimi lived on the street? Did she tell you?” Dean asked.

“I… I dunno.”

“Are you sure she said she lived here?”

Sam hesitated, then shook his head. 

“Can you think of someplace else she might live?”

Sam hesitated longer this time, his eyes too big in his little face. After a moment, he lifted one arm and pointed back at sagging trailer. No, Dean realized, not at the trailer. At the kudzu-tangled woods beyond. A cold shiver ran up Dean’s spine, standing all the fine hairs on the back of his neck on end. 

“Sammy. Does Mimi live in the woods?”

“Maybe,” Sam whispered. Dean’s gut churned, but he put on a resolved face and tugged Sam back towards the trailer. 

“Well, we can’t go in the woods dressed like this,” he told Sam.

“Cause of the snakes?” Sam asked.

Dean nodded. “And the chiggers and poison ivy.”

Back at the trailer, Sam passively accepted the outfit Dean laid out for him, not arguing over the too-short jeans, the oversized long-sleeved shirt—one of Dean’s castoffs—or even the thick socks. Dean dressed himself similarly, covering as much skin as possible before they went tromping through the unfamiliar woods. 

“Go pack a snack,” he told Sam. “If we find Mimi, we can share.”

When Sam went to the kitchen, Dean pulled out the real gear – a silver knife, a bottle of holy water, a bag of rock salt. He wavered on taking the gun, but ‘protect Sammy’ beat out ‘never let anyone see the gun’ in the end. He checked the safety and then tucked the small pistol into the back of his jeans. The rest of the gear went into Dean’s old, worn out backpack. 

Sammy held a crumpled paper bag in his hand when Dean came out of the bedroom. He smiled widely at Dean, showing his dimples. 

“What’d you pack?” Dean asked.

“Crackers and Oreos.”

“I thought we were out of Oreos.”

Sam smiled slyly. “I hid ’em.”

Dean laughed as he hooked one arm around his brother’s neck, giving him a noogie with the other hand. “Of course you did. Sneaky Sammy!” 

Sam squealed and tried to squirm away, but Dean held him fast for a few seconds before relenting. Both boys were still laughing as they made their way down the sagging trailer’s stairs and across the yard. The laughter died out as they faced the curtain of kudzu engulfing the tall Georgia pines behind the trailers. 

“Do we have to?” Dean asked.

“Mimi,” Sam pleaded, shaking his paper bag of Oreos and crackers. 

“You really sure Mimi lives in there?” Dean asked. Sam nodded silently. “Well, okay. Help me find a stick first.” 

The boys kicked around the edges of the kudzu, Sam offering Dean several possible sticks before they found the perfect one: smooth, straight, and slightly shorter than Dean. With his snake poking stick in hand, Dean squared his shoulders and approached the kudzu.

“Okay, Sammy. Stay right behind me.”

“Okay, Dean.”

“And if I say run, you run, alright?” Dean said. 

“Okay, Dean.”

“I mean it, twerp!” Dean insisted, wagging a finger in Sam’s face. “If I let you get bit by a snake or eaten by a bear, Dad’ll kill me.”

“Okay, Dean,” Sam repeated. 

“Right behind me!” Dean said again, then he took a deep breath, beat his walking stick against the kudzu a few times to scare off as many snakes as possible, and plunged into the dense curtain of vines. Sam followed closely behind him as instructed, stepping on Dean’s heels a few times. Dean cleared a path through the kudzu with hands and stick, until they finally broke through the vines and into open woods. When Dean looked over his shoulder, past Sammy’s head, the kudzu had already fallen back in place like they’d never passed. 

Dim sunlight filtered down through the needles of tall pine trees, dappling the boys’ shoulders. Small animals chittered and rustled from the underbrush, and birds twittered and cawed from the canopy above. Already, the brothers were deep enough in the woods to block out any road sounds, though the faint whistle of a train still made its way through the trees like a ghostly echo.

“Which way?” Dean asked, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders. Sam squinted at the forest for a moment before pointing slightly to the left. Dean nodded and headed that way, tromping through the brake to clear the way for Sam. 

They didn’t have to walk for very long before they broke through the woods and into a small, kudzu-draped clearing. Sam gasped and came up short behind Dean and pointed at the waterfall of vines ahead of them. At first, Dean couldn’t see it, but as he stared where Sam pointed, the shape finally resolved itself like a Magic Eye picture – a ramshackle house, faded grey from years, porch sagging worse than the trailer. A slender tree grew through a hole punctured in the rusted tin roof. 

“Mimi’s house,” Sam whispered.

“Sam,” Dean answered quietly, his heart filling with dread. “Nobody’s lived in this house for years and years.”

“It’s her house,” Sam insisted. “I brought enough snacks to share.”

Dean eyed the house. Vines grew through the glassless windows, and tall weeds obscured much of what the kudzu hadn’t swallowed. Every instinct Dean had screamed at him to grab Sam, turn around, and run for the trailer as fast as their feet could carry them. Every ounce of training John had drilled into him yelled at him to take his brother and go. He looked down at Sam, prepared to tell him as much, but instead what came out was, “Stay here. I’ll check inside.”

“I want to come, too,” Sam said, but he didn’t sound like he really wanted to.

“No,” Dean said firmly. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“But Dean,” Sam protested in a small voice, “I’m scared.”

Dean held out the walking stick. “Here. Take this. If you see a snake, whack it.”

“What if I see something else?”

“Yell for me and I’ll come right back. Okay?” 

Sam nodded. “Okay, Dean.”

Dean wished for a flashlight. More than that, he wished for John to come home, find them missing, and track them through the woods to this clearing. He wanted John to tell him and Sammy to get packed up, because it’s time to move on. He wanted his final look at the trailer, the dirt yard, and the kudzu to come through the rear window of the Impala as they drove away. 

As Dean approached the house, he hesitated, convinced for a moment John would come crashing through the brush to stop him. A final glance over his shoulder showed him the only other Winchester in the clearing was Sam. Dean slid his right hand around to his back, sliding the pistol around his hip where Sam couldn’t see it. He slowly walked closer to the house until he finally reached the front porch steps. Up close, the house looked even more run down, the door barely hanging on its hinges. 

“Hello?” Dean called up toward the door. Nobody answered, but something rustled inside the house. Dean forced himself to put his foot on the first step. The moment his shoe touched the warped wood, a cold chill ran through his body. As he carefully made his way up onto the porch, the air grew colder and colder, until Dean could see his breath. Shivering, he released the pistol grip and instead swung his backpack around his shoulder, rummaging inside until he found the bag of salt. 

John always said ghosts were easy. A cakewalk, he said. A one-man job. Dean didn’t overly care for cake, but here he was anyway, the one man on this job. He crossed the porch, inching his way around a large split in the wood, boards rotted away. The hole underneath looked black and cavernous, like a gaping maw with splintered wood for teeth. 

Dean paused at the threshold to call out “Hello?” again, salt in hand. Again, he heard the rustle from inside, quiet as a pair of bird wings. Wanting nothing more than to bolt back towards Sam, Dean instead squeezed through the space between the dangling front door and its frame, his breath a white cloud in front of him. As he shoe hit the floor inside the house, something crunched underneath. Dean looked down to see a small shard of yellow plastic. He lifted his foot to see the rest – Mimi’s barrette, or what was left of it, splintered into pieces beneath his shoe. 

“Mimi?” Dean asked. “Mimi, if you’re here, I’m sorry I stepped on your barrette.”

No answer, and no rustle this time. The house was quiet around him, outside noises muffled by the veil of kudzu. Inside, it smelled like damp and decay. Dean reached into the bag of salt and carefully pulled out a handful, laying it in a clean line along the threshold. If he had to run, he needed to be sure nothing could follow. 

Dean tucked the bag of salt into his pocket. The front door led into a large room with only one other door, tucked into the far right wall. The main room seemed to serve multiple purposes, from the wooden rockers near the stone hearth to the kitchen along the back wall, along with a table and two chairs. A thick layer of dust covered everything. In the very center of the house, the tree grew in through a pit in the floorboards and then up through the roof. The pit around the tree had the same hungry look as the hole in the front porch, and Dean gave it a wide berth as he made his way around the room. He reached into this pocket and gripped the bag of salt tightly. As he’d told Sam, nobody had lived here for years and years, but that didn’t mean Dean was alone. 

When Dean reached the far right wall, he made his way to the back of the house, relying on the sturdier floorboards there to support his weight. He stood before the door and looked down at the brass knob. It was the only thing in the house not covered in dust. Dean held his breath as he grasped the knob and turned, pulling the door toward him and preparing to leap, run, or fight if needed. Instead, the door swung open with a soft sigh, revealing nothing more than a small bedroom, as paltry and dusty as everything else in the house. At one end stood a battered wooden dresser, and at the other end, a small bed with a faded and mildewed quilt covering the mattress. Dean inhaled sharply when he saw what rested in the middle of the quilt: Mimi’s yellow-painted wooden box of ceramic animals. 

His heart thundering in his ears, Dean snatched up the box and shoved it into his backpack, then turned on heel to race back towards the door. As he skirted the tree, he felt something brush against the backs of his legs. He flung a handful of salt from the bag blindly behind him and leaped over the threshold with its salt line. A force like a pressure change hit the salt barrier behind Dean as he teetered on the edge of the gaping porch hole. In the clearing, beyond the porch, Dean saw Sam waiting for him, and with his eyes locked on his brother, Dean leaped like a deer or a dancer across the black pit of the porch. He tumbled down the stairs and landed at the bottom, the red clay beneath his bottom warm from the mid-October sun. 

“Dean?” Sam gasped in surprise, looking uncertain as to whether he should approach his brother or not. 

“Mimi wasn’t home,” Dean said. For once, Sam didn’t ask any questions. He offered Dean a hand instead, helping him to his feet, then passed the walking stick back to him. Without a word, Dean took Sam’s hand in his, and together they walked out of the clearing and back in the direction they had come. 

The walk back seemed shorter, with the boys side by side, and Dean had no trouble retracing their steps to find his way back. He swatted halfheartedly at the brush, snakes the furthest thing from his mind, and somehow, even the kudzu curtain separating the woods from the J-shaped street seemed thinner and less impenetrable. Dean kept hold of Sam’s hand as he stepped in front, parting the vines so they could pass. He had never been so grateful to see the sagging trailer, which now looked like a palace compared to the old house in the clearing. 

Inside, after Dean had unpacked his gear and hidden the wooden box of animals, he sat on the saggy sofa with Sam. They quietly ate the crackers and Oreos Sam had packed in the paper bag. The sun began to set, and Dean made tomato soup and grilled cheese with the last few slices of bread. At Dean’s insistence, Sam had a bath. While Sam splashed in the water, Dean uncovered the yellow wooden box and sneaked outside. 

“I’m sorry, Mimi,” Dean whispered as he crouched behind the trailer and poured lighter fluid onto the box. He stood, lit a match, and tossed it down. The old box caught easily, and probably would have even without the lighter fluid, but Dean couldn’t be too careful about these things. As the box burned, Dean heard sharp pops, and realized it was the ceramic animals shattering in the flames. When the fire died down, it left behind only ash and a few tiny fragments of ceramic, needle-sharp and fine. Dean sprinkled the ashes with salt and went back inside.

Sam had just drained the tub when Dean got in, and he wrinkled his nose at Dean. “You smell like smoke.”

“I think the neighbors are burning leaves,” Dean said. He looked Sam straight in the eyes and silently begged him not to argue, and maybe Sam heard him, because he just nodded in response. 

The boys put on their pajamas and climbed into the lumpy bed, curling closer to each other than usual under the blankets. Dean lay still and silent until Sammy’s breathing evened out into sleep, and only then could he close his eyes. When they woke in the morning, John was back, the job finally done. Dean packed his things and Sammy’s with a feeling of profound relief. Even Sam seemed grateful to see John, despite his anger from the previous morning, and soon the boys and their things were settled into the back seat of the Impala. 

As they drove away from the sagging trailer, Dean gave it one final look from the Impala’s rear window. In the patchy grass and red clay yard, he thought for a moment he saw a little girl in a yellow dress standing there, waving after them. 

Sam never mentioned Mimi again.


End file.
